


Hi Reader, I'm Dad

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Kid Fic, M/M, Really though an outrageous number of dad jokes, dad jokes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-20 11:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2427785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas and fatherhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one.

“Alyssa,” Dean says, for about the hundredth time.

Cas rolls his eyes, but truth be told, he doesn’t mind. He kind of wants to say it a hundred times in a row, too, but he’s driving, and, well. He’s happy to listen to Dean repeat their daughter’s name in awe as many times as he would like.

“You know what this means, right?” Dean whispers, excitement clear in his voice. It’s the most coherent sentence he’s spoken since he took the baby in his arms. She’s been sleeping there contentedly ever since, like she belongs there. Which, you know, Cas would really like to believe she does.

“What?” Cas asks, eyes on the road. He wants to see how excited Dean looks, but not so much he has a death wish. There will be time for staring later. Hours of it. Days. Weeks. Years. A whole lifetime, if he has his way.

“All of my jokes are now officially dad jokes,” Dean says.

Cas rolls his eyes to try to distract Dean from the fact that he’s smiling. “I’m so happy for you,” he says, flatly.

There’s an ominous pause, and then Dean says, barely contained laughter evident in his voice even though he’s still whispering, “Hi, so happy for you. I’m dad.”

Cas doesn’t even care, he’s going to risk it. He glances at Dean just long enough to raise an eyebrow in mock disapproval. “So help me god, Dean, if you insist on subjecting me to this while I’m driving, I’m going to pull this car over.”

He realizes his mistake immediately, but it’s too late. Much, much too late. He can’t see Dean’s glee so much as he can sense it. Can feel it, actually, vibrating up through the seat as Dean shakes with silent laughter.

“Hi, going to pull this car over,” Dean manages to choke out. “I’m dad.”

Cas does have to pull the car over, actually, because Dean is trying so hard to keep still and quiet so as not to wake Alyssa that his face is turning red and his eyes are watering.

Cas holds their daughter while Dean exits the car, closes the door, and moves a respectable distance away before allowing himself to indulge his stupid sense of humor. Cas looks down at the baby. “Can you believe we have to put up with this guy?” Cas asks her sleeping form. She remains sleeping, which Cas figures means she doesn’t mind Dean’s jokes. Cas kind of likes them, actually, but if asked, he will deny it until his dying breath.

When Dean finally returns, Cas fixes with him a glare. Affectionately. “Are you quite finished?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says soberly. “I’m done.”

Cas keeps his gaze stern and level as he nods his approval at Dean. “Hi, done. I’m dad.”

Dean makes a strangled noise and has to step out again, and Cas spends the next five minutes trying to restrain some laughter of his own.

“Okay. For real this time,” Dean says when he returns to his seat, taking the baby from Cas so they can get back on the road. In his periphery, Cas can see Dean switching back and forth between looking at him and looking at Alyssa, smiling the whole time, and Cas can feel himself smiling helplessly, too.

They break the silence only once more before they get back home. “Hey,” Dean says, softly. “Love you.”

“Yes,” Cas says. “Love you, too.”


	2. two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas contemplates the universe. And pancakes.

Cas is holding Alyssa the first time she smiles, and he just stares and stares and stares.

“God,” Dean says, hooking his chin over Cas’ shoulder, “she’s ridiculously adorable. Unfairly adorable. Adorably adorable.”

When Cas doesn’t respond, Dean moves around to look at him from the front. He’s got this expression like...well, kind of like his entire universe is collapsing.

“Cas?” Dean asks, because he actually _is_ concerned, despite the humorous juxtaposition of smiling baby and stricken husband. “You okay?”

Cas looks up at him as though waking from a dream, but when he meets Dean’s eyes, his expression changes to something a little softer, something more like wonder.

“It’s so strange,” Cas says, brow furrowed. “Objectively, I’m aware I existed for many millennia prior to knowing you. But here, now, I can’t seem to imagine a life without you. Without her. It’s just...strange.”

“You dork,” Dean says, with a grin that totally gives away the fact that he’s also a huge dork. “That’s great.” Cas smiles sheepishly as Dean plants a quick kiss on his forehead. “How about pancakes? Can you remember a time before those?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Cas says.

“Well, luckily I’m here to help,” Dean says, heading off towards the kitchen.

Alyssa keeps on smiling her approval.


	3. three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam meets his match.

Personally, Dean thinks he does a pretty damn good job keeping his excitement in check. He greets Sam at the door with a hug. He waits for Sam to make his way down the stairs, to set down his bag, to say hi to Cas. He waits for Sam to take off his shoes and settle down on the couch. He waits until Alyssa has been properly introduced and placed in Sam’s lap, and then he can’t wait any longer.

“She said her first word yesterday,” Dean says, beaming. “It was ‘dada’.”

Sam shakes his head at Dean, bemused. He kind of wants to point out that the kid has two dads, so what the hell else would her first word be, but Dean is so obviously and so ridiculously proud that no one with a soul could bear to shoot him down.

“I’m disappointed in you guys,” Sam says, because he may not be heartless, but he still has standards. “I thought she would be talking about quantum mechanics and singing classic rock by now.”

Dean would totally throw a pillow at his snarky asshole of a little brother, but Sam’s holding the baby, so he gets a pass. This time. “Shut up,” he says instead.

“Dada,” Alyssa says. She sounds vaguely admonishing. Dean decides it’s a coincidence.

“That’s right,” Sam says, because he decides it’s _not_ a coincidence. “You tell him.” And then he makes the mistake of leaning down to make faces at his niece. She immediately grabs a clump of Sam’s hair in her little fist, giggling with delight. Sam makes a few determined but ultimately fruitless attempts to extricate himself before he accepts the fact he’s going to have to remain hunched over awkwardly until his tiny foe sees fit to release him.

“See?” Dean says smugly. “No time for quantum mechanics when you’re busy teaching your kid a kung fu grip.”

“That’s true,” Cas chimes in. “We’re saving quantum mechanics for age five.”

“Nerds,” Sam says.


	4. four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas is a terrible influence.

When Alyssa wakes up screaming bloody murder at three in the morning, Dean volunteers to get up. _Volunteers_ , can you believe it?

Don’t lie. He can scarcely believe it himself.

“Go back to sleep,” Dean says, in response to Cas’ dramatic groaning. “I got this.”

He half expects Cas to say, “Well, obviously. Everyone knows all you need is your four hours a night and you’re good to go.” But then he remembers he’s not _that_ Dean any more, and Cas isn’t _that_ Cas.

To be fair, Dean _can_ still get by on four hours of sleep a night. Cas, though? Cas is a useless lump of grump with anything less than a full eight. So what Cas actually says is something that might have been “thank goddddd” if he had bothered to actually lift his face from the pillow. Which he didn’t.

At any rate, Dean retrieves Alyssa from her crib and shuts the bedroom door behind them. By the time Dean is done changing and feeding her, she’s stopped crying but is wide awake, so he spends the next who knows how many hours following her as she crawls around the bunker with fierce determination. He loses track of the time at some point, either because he’s so enamoured of his daughter or because he’s delirious from sleep deprivation. Or both. He’s pretty awesome, he’ll admit, but he’s only human.

By the time Cas rolls out of bed around seven, Dean is downright exhausted. Mercifully, Alyssa has worn herself out, too, and has resigned herself to laying on Dean’s chest as he sinks further and further into the couch. “I’m getting _old_ ,” he whines as Cas shuffles into the room, because even though he _can_ get by on four hours, that doesn’t mean it’s what he prefers.

“Oh, shut up,” Cas says cheerfully. He leans over to kiss the top of Dean’s head, then leans even farther to kiss Alyssa’s.

“Sup-up,” Alyssa agrees.

“Wow,” Dean says. “First thing she says besides ‘dada’ is ‘shut up.’ You’re a terrible influence, you layabout.”

Cas shrugs, then grins. “I would lay on you right now if there wasn’t a tiny human in the way.”

“Damn,” Dean says.

“Indeed.” Cas pauses, tilting his head to the side as he strategizes. “We could drink coffee and hold hands instead.”

“Gross,” Dean says, too tired to keep from smiling. “I think I’ll need half a dozen cups.”

Cas nods seriously and heads for the kitchen.


	5. five.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not quite the end of the world.

Alyssa takes her first steps, and suddenly being a father becomes exponentially more stressful.

Every time Alyssa falls or bumps against the furniture, Cas is halfway out of his seat before he even has a chance to see how she’s going to react. She usually picks herself right back up to continue waddling around the bunker, oblivious to Cas’ panic, but Cas still worries, still feels like he’s constantly on edge.

He manages to hide his concern well enough until one of the rare mornings where he’s up with Alyssa in order to let Dean catch up on some much-needed rest. Alyssa slips and falls as she’s walking towards Cas, and as soon as she looks up into Cas’ stricken face, she bursts into tears. He rushes to pick her up immediately, shushing her as calmly as he can manage, but after fifteen minutes pass and neither of them seems to be getting any less upset, Cas wakes Dean up in a panic. “Dean I can’t get her to stop crying I think something must really be wrong I think we need to go to the hospital,” he says in a rush, shaking Dean awake with his free hand.

Dean goes from drool-on-face sleeping to wide awake in about a hundredth of a second. “What happened?” he asks, and the concern on his face makes Cas even more nervous. “Slow down.”

“She--she fell, I don’t--” Cas stammers, and to his surprise, Dean relaxes immediately, worry shifting into a lopsided grin.

“Give her here,” Dean says, and Cas can’t quite process this strange reaction, but he hands Alyssa over nonetheless.

“Aw, did you fall?” Dean asks her, a big smile on his face. “Lucky you, I have just the thing to fix you right up.” With that, Dean sets Alyssa on the bed next to him and starts blowing raspberries on her tummy. In about three seconds flat, Alyssa is laughing, prior distress completely forgotten. “You big faker,” Dean says. “You’re more durable than you look, huh?” He flashes Cas a triumphant grin.

“Sorcery,” Cas says, with no small measure of awe. Dean laughs, tickling Alyssa mercilessly as she giggles.

“Kids wait to see your reaction,” Dean says, shrugging. “You act like nothing’s wrong, a lot of the time they don’t catch on that there’s anything to cry about.”

Cas takes a moment to consider this. Dean would know, he supposes. After all, how many times must Dean have smiled to keep Sam from crying?

“Thank you,” Cas mumbles. Now that the not-really-a-crisis has passed, Cas feels immensely relieved and more than a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry for waking you over something so trivial.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “As if I’m gonna be mad at you for caring. Get in, you dork,” he says, lifting the blankets.

Cas accepts the offer gladly, and they stay there cuddling late into the morning. When they finally get up, Cas is pleased to report that no one fell out of the bed and he’s feeling much, much better.


	6. six.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas takes Halloween very seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't forgotten about this! I swear!

Cas starts sewing clothes for Alyssa by hand.

He doesn’t know what compels him to start, really. He supposes it’s just that it might feel good to apply himself to something other than destroying. He’s done quite enough of that, thank you.

On his first trek to the crafts shop, Cas spends hours frowning at all the patterns and fabrics and threads. There are so many choices. He’s pretty sure he buys something like a hundred of each.

When he returns with all the bags, Dean gives him a skeptical look.

“What?” Cas says, defensive. “They were on sale.” Dean simply rolls his eyes affectionately and leaves him to it.

Which, well. It’s a good thing Dean assigns himself cartoon duty while Cas is experimenting with the sewing machine, because it goes horribly at first. He has to totally scrap the first thing he tries to make. He isn’t quite sure where he went wrong, but somehow he’s managed to screw up the arm holes so badly that he essentially ends up making a very colorful cloth sack. And he’s not going to shove Alyssa into that monstrosity. She deserves better than that.

He decides he needs to start even simpler. He sifts through the patterns until he finds the ones specifically geared towards beginners. He does some research online. He practices. And he has to scrap a few more things, but eventually Dean gets home from grocery shopping one day and finds Alyssa perched on a giant bee pillow next to Cas, who’s reading on the couch.

“My bee!” Alyssa says happily.

“What do you think?” Cas asks, trying to pretend not to care about the answer. But it’s all good, because Dean breaks into a grin.

“I love it,” he says, planting a kiss on the top of Cas’ head before turning toward Alyssa. “Lookit you!” Dean says, tickling her tummy. “My squishy flower has a squishy bee!”

And, well. That’s all the encouragement Cas needs.

By the time Halloween rolls around, Cas is more than prepared. This is his time to shine.

Dean protests that people are gonna think Cas is a weirdo if he takes Alyssa trick-or-treating, but Cas is committed, so he simply shrugs indifferently. Dean switches tactics. “Alyssa isn’t even going to remember it,” he says.

Because Cas loves Dean, he doesn’t point out that Dean is probably not an authority on this subject, having never been trick-or-treating himself. Instead, he says, “ _I’m_ going to remember it.” The look Dean gives him, Cas knows he finally gets it.

It’s a good thing, too, because Cas is pretty damn proud of his handmade, self-designed, meticulously detailed creations. He’s dressed as a beehive and Alyssa is in, of course, a bee costume.

“People are going to notice she doesn’t even have all her teeth, Cas,” Dean says as they head out the door, because he knows he’s already lost this battle.

Cas looks at Alyssa very seriously. “I have enough teeth for the both of us, don’t you think?”

Alyssa rewards him with a smile that is, admittedly, still mostly gums.

“That looks like a ‘yes’ to me,” Cas concludes. “My queen commands. Besides,” he adds, “I promise you can have all the spoils.”

“All right, all right,” Dean says. “Bring me back something good, worker bees.”

Cas aims to please. He takes Alyssa door to door in Lebanon, and by the time they get back to the bunker, they have enough candy to feed a small army. They’ve also unexpectedly acquired assorted scraps of paper listing various names and phone numbers. It turns out, in a town where the population hovers around 200, people tend to notice new faces. Who knew.

“We’ve been invited to dinner,” Cas announces as he sets down the bags of candy and hands a soundly sleeping Alyssa off to Dean.

“Oh? By who?”

“Whom,” Cas says. “By half the town.” Dean simply shakes his head and wanders off to put Alyssa to bed while Cas begins meticulously copying the information over into something more permanent.

By the time Dean returns, Cas has already retired to Dean’s usual spot on the couch to snack on the fruits of his labor. Dean must be pleased with their Halloween haul, too, because he doesn’t even complain, just straddles Cas’ legs and leans down to kiss him. He pulls back after a while, grinning.

“Is that a Snickers bar in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

“Actually,” Cas says, lifting one candy bar he hadn’t yet gotten around to eating, “it’s a Milky Way.”

Dean laughs so hard he tires himself out. He falls asleep cuddling with Cas on the couch before he’s even had a chance to claim some of the candy for himself.

All in all, Cas feels like the whole endeavor was a massive success.

He realizes just how much of a success it was the following day, when they start getting calls asking them to make good on the dinner dates Cas has promised. By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, the neighbors--as Cas has started referring to them in spite of the fact there are no houses for miles around the bunker--have all learned that neither Dean nor Cas has living parents and decided it’s their responsibility to step up to the plate.

Every single member of the over-60 crowd becomes part of a new group: Alyssa’s honorary grandparents. Before long, Dean has begun referring to every last one of them as “bonus mom” or “bonus dad.”

However, it’s only as Christmas approaches that Dean and Cas realize how seriously the neighbors are taking their new roles.

The number of presents they receive for Alyssa winds up being more than they know what to do with. More than can even fit in the bunker, which is truly remarkable. Dean immediately decides to upgrade everyone from “the neighbors” to “the family.” Cas doesn’t disagree.

Once they’ve finished writing “thank you” notes to every bonus family member, they pick out the few gifts they want to keep and donate the rest to charity. “So other kids can have good a kickass Christmas, too,” Dean says. “Even if it’s a little belated.”

A few weeks later, a package comes in the mail. It’s a scrapbook full of pictures of dozens of happy kids with their hauls from “Santa.”

“I’m not crying,” Dean says, as he flips through the pages.

“I didn’t say you were crying,” Cas says.

Dean is totally crying.


	7. seven.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam gets more than he bargained for.

Alyssa is getting really good at communicating. She has words for everything, now, and actually talks about things and asks for them by name.

This mostly consists of claiming ownership (“My cookies”) or making demands (“More cookies!”), but Dean couldn’t be more thrilled.

Which is why he’s sort of affronted when Sam visits and refers to her speech as “completely nonsensical.”

“Seriously,” Sam says. “It’s super cute, but what the hell is she saying?”

“What the hell are _you_ saying,” Dean says. Sam rolls his eyes.

So that’s why Cas spends the rest of Sam’s visit calmly translating everything Alyssa says: “She likes your hair.” “She wants more juice.” “This is a coloring book she’s drawn in. She wants to tell you a story about the characters. This animal is Clinton. He may look like a dog, but he’s actually a fierce wolf. He wants to be an astronaut. He has a friend who…” (This one takes a while.)

It’s Dean, though, who cheerfully translates Alyssa’s pronouncement that follows the completion of her story: “She has to poop.”

Sam gives Dean a look that says, _Really, Dean?_

“Don’t give me that look, Sam,” Dean says. “Everybody poops.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Dude.”

“It’s true,” Cas says, nodding solemnly. “We have a book about it, if you’re interested.”

Dean fights to keep a straight face as Sam tries and fails to determine whether or not Cas is actually serious. “Uh,” Sam says. “Thanks, Cas, but. I’m not interested.”

“Shit,” Cas says, to which Sam responds with a quizzical look.

It’s remarkable how quickly Dean manages to transition from admirably holding back laughter to shamelessly cackling.

“Hi, not interested,” Dean says, breathless, “I’m dad.”

“You guys are so lame,” Sam says, but he’s smiling like he loves it.


	8. eight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is #blessed.

There’s something vaguely worrisome about Cas whispering conspiratorially with a 3 year old.

Not that Dean is scared when this happens, necessarily. It _usually_ doesn’t end in disaster. Just, you know, a lot of cleanup when Cas and Alyssa decide they’re going to try to make a cake castle or turn the living room into an obstacle course or set up a Slip ‘N Slide in the hallway.

Actually, Dean does have to veto that last one, but he loves his family so much that he doesn’t even care he has to be the responsible parent.

There are other times, though, when Cas is whispering with Alyssa and gets this look on his face like she’s telling him the secrets of the universe, and Dean never quite knows what to make of that.

Dean winds up figuring it out randomly one night while he’s killing time on the computer as Cas gets Alyssa ready for bed. He’s been browsing mindlessly, but before he shuts the laptop down, he goes to check for updates on facebook. (Yeah, he actually has a facebook account now. He uses it to shamelessly spam literally everyone he knows with family photos. So sue him.) Sam has posted a pic of Dean and Cas, and he’s captioned it “#tbt to when these idiots hadn’t realized how disgustingly in love they are and all of us were spared them clogging our newsfeeds with their bullshit.” (It has a dozen “likes,” which Dean is pretty excited about. Krissy has commented saying nothing but “#realtalk,” to which he replies, “whatever, u love it.” Claire has responded with “actual picture of those doofuses” and attached [a picture of several sheep with the caption “Hangin out with the fam. #blessed.”](http://juanzerker.tumblr.com/post/116515189270/) Several other people have “liked” her comment, so Dean figures it must be some kind of inside joke he’s not privy to. Dean replies with “ur a doofus” and calls it good.)

Anyway, the point is that in the picture, Cas is looking off to the side and Dean is looking at him in the same way Cas now looks at Alyssa. Dean thinks, _Oh._

By the time Cas is done putting Alyssa to bed, Dean is waiting outside her room, leaning against the wall. He gives Cas what he’s pretty sure is a goofy grin, and as they walk together towards their own room, Dean says, “Did you know that, besides the apple of knowledge and the pomegranate of life, there’s another mystic fruit, one that grants you a sense of purpose?”

Cas frowns. “No?” he says, after a long pause in which he looked like he was actually trying to sift through millions of years’ worth of memories to discern whether or not this might actually be the case.

“Yeah,” Dean says, walking ahead of Cas into their room. He stops in front of the bed and turns to face Cas with a flourish. “It’s the raisin d’être.” (He says it perfectly. He googled the pronunciation so he could be absolutely sure to get it right.)

Cas groans and shoves Dean onto the bed. Dean laughs the whole way down.

“Did you come up with that yourself?” Cas asks, as he starts changing into his pajamas.

“Nah,” Dean says, doing the same, except without standing, because why get up from the bed if you don’t have to? “[Stole it from the internet.](http://domesticadventures.tumblr.com/post/107614148458/)”

They’re both smiling as they finish getting changed in companionable silence and head to the bathroom to brush their teeth.

“It’s just, I was thinking,” Dean says, as he finishes up and spits toothpaste into the sink. “I love the way you look at Alyssa. Like she’s your raisin.”

He must catch Cas off guard, because he stops in the middle of spitting his own toothpaste and winds up with some dripping down his chin as he snaps his head up to look at Dean. Dean grins at him in fond amusement. Cas tries his best to scowl.

“Not fair,” Cas says, as he sets about cleaning himself up. When he finishes, he turns to Dean, cupping his face in his hands, and his expression goes soft. “Anyway,” Cas says, thumbs stroking Dean’s cheeks, “I have room in my package for more than one raisin.”

Dean is kind of on the verge of happy crying, so he wiggles his eyebrows and says, “Oh yeah. I’m definitely interested in your package.”

“You ruin everything,” Cas says, right before he presses Dean against the bathroom wall and kisses him silly.

“Strongly disagree,” Dean says, when Cas finally lets him up for air.


End file.
